S Bolton - Sacrifice

Helen opened her eyes when we were twenty feet from the ground. We put down on a football field. Fifty yards away sat a blue and white police car. My heart started to thud but Helen didn't bat an eyelid. She yelled something at the pilot and then jumped out. I followed and we ran to the police car. The constable in the driving seat started the engine.

'Morning, Nigel,' said Helen.

'Morning, ma'am,' he replied. 'Where to first?'

'The harbour, please,' replied Helen.

We drove through a small, grey-stone town that looked vaguely familiar. When we arrived at the harbour I realized where we were. A few years ago Duncan and I had taken part in a flotilla cruise of the Highlands' whisky distilleries. The week-long junket had begun in this town and I remembered a drunken, wonderful evening. It felt like a very long time ago.

Helen gave the driver some directions and we drove along the harbour front, stopping just short of the pier, for no reason I could see. We got out. Helen led me to one of the small stalls that line the front of most seaside towns.

'Do you like seafood?' she asked.

'Not usually for breakfast,' I replied.

'Trust me. Do you like seafood?'

'I guess,' I said, thinking what the hell, a good chuck-up will at least get rid of the nausea.

Helen pointed out a bench overlooking the sea and I sat down. I could smell the sour, slightly rancid aroma of sun-dried seaweed and the leftovers of yesterday's catch. And something wonderful. Helen sat down beside me, handing me a large cardboard mug of coffee, several white paper napkins and a grease-stained paper bag.

'Lobster bap,' she said smugly. 'Fresh caught this morning.'

It was an incredible breakfast: the bitter, rich strength of the coffee worked like medicine; the softness of the fresh white bread, dripping with salty, warm butter and coating my lips with flour like fine talcum powder. And the lobster, rich and sweet, every mouthful a feast in itself. Helen and I ate as though we were racing, and by a fraction of a second I won.

I'd have given anything to have stayed there, drinking coffee as the sun rose in the sky and the sea turned from silver to a rich, deep blue; watching the tide go out and the fishing boats come in. But the clock was ticking. The world was waking up and I knew Helen hadn't brought me to Oban just for breakfast.

As though reading my mind, she looked at her watch. 'Seven forty-five,' she said. 'I'd say that's a respectable enough time for house-calls.' She stood up, brushed herself down and held out her hand for my empties.

Back in the car she turned to me. 'OK, listen good, because we'll be there in a minute. While you were in the land of nod last night, I had another look at Gair, Carter, Gow's bank accounts, to see if I could find anything else out of the ordinary. There are six client accounts in total. I found references to your husband's firm, to the hospital where you work and to Tronal. But Dana hadn't cross- referenced anything else and there was nothing to compare with the amounts of money supposedly being moved around by Shiller Drilling. Are you with me?'

'Yep. So far.' We'd left the harbour and were winding our way through Oban's residential streets. Nigel, the driver, pulled over to check a street-map.

'That's not to say there's nothing there. Just that it needs more digging than I had time for last night.'

'OK.' We were on the move again.

'Then I started going through the commercial account statements. Again, nothing really stood out. Cheques and cash are banked most days, but there's no real detail on where the money is coming from. We'd need to go through their books to find that. There's a fairly large payroll that goes out monthly and various direct debits to the utility companies. Money also comes in monthly from a few clients who have the firm on retainer.'

'All things you might expect?' The car had slowed down. We turned into a cul de sac of newish detached houses. Nigel was peering at house numbers.

'Right. But when I was going through Gair, Carter, Gow's Oban account – which I left till last, by the way – something did stand out.'

'Here we are, ma'am,' said Nigel. 'Number fourteen.'

'Thanks, give us a minute,' said Helen. 'Three payments from the Oban commercial account to something called the Cathy Morton Trust. I noticed them partly because of their size – they amounted to half a million in sterling in total. And this wasn't a client account, remember, this was coming from Gair, Carter, Gow's own money. The other thing that got my attention was the timing.'

Over Helen's shoulder I could see curtains moving. A small face was watching us from a downstairs window of number four- teen.

'Three payments, in September and October 2004. The second of them on the sixth of October 2004.'

I said nothing, just looked back at her, waiting for the punch line. Helen looked disappointed; I'd obviously missed something. 'So then I got back on the Internet and called up a national police register. Only one record of a Cathy Morton in Oban and this was her last known address. Come on, they've seen us. You too, Nigel, please. You'll need your notebook.'

We got out of the car and walked up the drive to the front door. Helen knocked. The door was opened quickly by a man in his late thirties, dressed in a suit that needed pressing and a blue shirt open at the neck. A small boy in Spider-Man pyjamas peered at us from around the door frame.

Helen flashed her badge and introduced Nigel and me. The man glared at us both.

'Mr Mark Salter?' asked Helen.

His head jerked forwards.

'We need to talk to you and your wife. May we come in?'

Salter didn't move. 'She's in bed,' he said. Another child, a girl this time, had joined her brother. They watched us with the unabashed curiosity of the extremely young.

'Please ask her to join us,' said Helen, moving forward. Salter had a choice: step back or go nose to nose with a senior police officer. He made the sensible decision and we were inside.

Salter muttered something about getting his wife up and disappeared upstairs. We went into the living room. The TV was tuned into CBeebies. The kids, aged about seven and three, seemed mesmerized by us.

'Hi!' said Helen, addressing the boy. 'You must be Jamie.' The boy said nothing. Helen tried the girl. 'Hello, Kirsty.'

Kirsty, a cute little thing with porcelain skin and bright-red hair, turned and ran from the room. We heard footsteps on the stairs as Mark Salter and his wife returned. Kirsty ran in behind them. The woman had obviously dressed in a hurry, pulling on jogging pants and a crumpled T-shirt. Over one shoulder she held a small baby, about four weeks old.

'I'm Caroline Salter,' she said, as Kirsty clung to her legs.

'I have to be at work in fifteen minutes,' said Mark Salter.

'You'll find being questioned by the police counts as a pretty good excuse,' said Helen. She glanced at the children and lowered her voice as she looked at Caroline Salter. 'I need to talk to you about your sister.'

The woman reached down and pulled Kirsty firmly away from her legs. She spoke to the boy and her voice brooked no argument. 'Come on, you two, breakfast.' She looked at her husband and he led the children from the room, switching off the TV as he went and closing the door behind him.

Caroline adjusted the baby and wrapped her hands more closely around him.

'My sister is dead,' she said, lowering herself on to one of the sofas.

Helen had been expecting that. She nodded. 'I know, I'm very sorry.' She looked round at the other sofa behind us and raised her arm in a may we? gesture. The Salter woman nodded and Helen and I sat down. Nigel perched on a chair by the window. There was no sign of his notebook.

'How are the children doing?' asked Helen.